Daily Archives: September 12, 2009

Today marks the 73rd year that SeñorGuillermo Gómez Rivera has been treading the earth. And upon meeting him inside his book-filled room this afternoon together with my wife, I immediately commented that he’s already 37 years old — ¡al revés! LOL!!!

Me and Señor Gómez go a long way. We’ve known each other for the past 12 years. He was one of my instructors back in Adamson University. It was he who opened my eyes to the twisted reality that is Philippine history and the existing language crisis that the Philippines is suffering from for decades since the American invasion of our islands back in 1898. Señor Gómez gave me all the opportunity that I could get to become a writer like him. He has made me feel welcome everytime I visit his house in Barrio de la Paz, Ciudad de Macati. He even once offered me and my young family to live with him back in 2003.

Throughout the years that I’ve come to know him —and his magnificent body of literature— I was faced with the realization that I’ve been working with a virtual national treasure; he deserves to become one of our country’s National Artists. I still have many things to write about him and his obras: books, flamenco activities, etc. Unfortunately, I’m too sleepy to even continue typing right now (been awake since 8:00 PM last night). But one thing’s for sure: this septuagenarian intellectual powerhorse will outlive most of us. If diplomat León Mª Guerrero considered Rizal as The First Filipino, I therefore call Señor Gómez as The Last Filipino, the quintessential one.

Despite the loss, it wasn’t really a humiliating defeat. Our boys put up a good and respectable fight in the beginning. “The Captain” Alvin Patrimonio nailed a trey in his first attempt. Then the “Triggerman” Allan Caidic took over and wowed the audience (including the great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who was with the coaching staff of the NBA Legends) with five consecutive three-pointers in the first quarter — exactly the kind of deadly accuracy which made him a household name in local basketball a few years back.

The PBA team even led by a point during that quarter: 26-25.

Halftime score was a close 46-41 in favor of the American squad. And at the start of the second half, that was when they started to pull away from the Filipinos.

But the bottomline is that players from both sides simply had fun playing for their fans. All they did out there was purely for entertainment. It was a friendly match which relaxed a politically fed-up audience.

Of course, everybody knew in the first place that Filipino cagers do not stand a chance against those who invented the game of basketball. But if it where sipà or patintero, well, it would’ve been a different story, hehe!